cliff deal with republicans. whatever negotiations are taking place between the president and speaker john boehner, whatever each side is prepared to give up a a level of security. it's totally possible the white house actually has no intent on messing with medicare or social security benefits. but for the left the chatter is ominous. it's coming from well sourced reporters and we've been down this road before. the pursuit with john boehner in 2011, obama was willing. there's reason to suspect there's something to all this chatter. and the question then becomes why? why would obama who simply by doing nothing these next few weeks could get the tax hike on the wealthy he's been demanding without touching medicare and social security? why would he entertain such drastic changes to the safety net? most likely culprit is the dreaded debt ceiling. here's why. republicans came to these talks with no leverage. the consequences of doing nothing before the december 31st meeting were worse for them than democrats. they loo